São misteriosos os caminhos que levam uma canção a bater recordes de plays nas plataformas de streaming, assim como, em outros tempos, nas paradas de sucesso. Como acontece em desastres aéreos, nos quais há sempre alguém que deixou de embarcar e escapou, bandas e artistas desdenham grandes hits que lhes foram oferecidos.

O produtor Joe Boyd, americano, na Inglaterra desde 1966, foi 9 primeiro empresário do Pink Floyd (produziu os primeiros compactos da banda). Também sócio do UFO, casa noturna frequentada pela nata do rock inglês da época, que tinha como bandas residentes o Pink Floyd e a Soft Machine (às vezes até Jimi Hendrix).

Em 1967, trouxeram-lhe uma banda de nome estranho, que lhe apresentou uma canção na qual ele não viu potencial de sucesso. A banda até tocou no UFO, mas Boyd não se interessou em produzi-la. Perdeu de contratar o Procol Harum, e de produzir A Whiter Shade of Pale, um clássico, dos sucessos mais duradouros dos anos 60.

Tem um hit dos anos 80 que já atingiu a marca do bilhão de plays nas plataformas: Don’t You (Forget About Me), de Keith Forsey e Steve Schiff, composta para o filme The Breafast Club, de 1985 (aqui batizado de Clube das Cinco). Os autores pensaram em Billy Idol para interpretá-la. Na época ele estava nas paradas com Dance With Myself, e onipresente na MTV. Idol não se mostrou muito interessado na canção.

Keith Forsey optou pelo Simple Minds, uma das bandas tecnopop mais bem-sucedidas dos anos 80. Jim Kerr, vocalista do grupo, confessou que ele e os companheiros toparam gravar Don’t You (Forget About Me) por desencargo de consciência. Tinham recusado a música seis vezes. Mas não foi apenas eles que a menosprezaram. Chrissie Hynde e Brian Ferry também a recusaram.

O Simple Minds gravou, o filme bombou, e com ele a canção, que se tornou o maior hit da carreira do grupo, com milhões de singles físicos vendidos, e agora 1 bilhão de plays no formato digital.

A group of Texans believe they’ve discovered evidence that the state’s environmental regulatory agency has continued to issue permits to data centers despite Governor Greg Abbott’s call for it to stop. 

The nonprofits Public Citizen and FracTracker Alliance, working with local activists in Texas, looked through the public database of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) and discovered that the organization has worked on multiple permits for data center projects since Abbott called for a pause in the process on September 21. Abbott’s office denied approving any new permits in a statement to 404 Media. 

According to Public Citizen and the FracTracker Alliance, which cite documents publicly available on the TCEQ’s website, the agency has reviewed documents and assigned engineers related to more than a dozen permits related to data center projects in the state. Public Citizen listed more than 15 and the Fractracker Alliance found 35. The same day the nonprofits announced their findings, The Texas Tribune published a report that Abbott had received $9 million in donations from developers and owners of data centers.

According to the documents reviewed by 404 Media, TCEQ issued air-emission limit certificates to a large data center in Houston; approved the construction of stormwater coverage for data centers in Abilene, Barstow, and Royse City; and fast tracked gas power plants for more than a dozen data center projects.

“The TCEQ’s own data indicates that it’s business as usual for data centers and affected communities were promised a freeze. And instead what they’re getting is another reason to distrust the TCEQ and ultimately ineffective attempts to govern by press release,” Kathryn Guerra of Public Citizen said during a press conference on Monday about the findings. “Absent any comprehensive guardrails imposed by the Texas legislature, the industry will continue to move forward as fast as it can, and the TCEQ may let it.”

"They're still putting in that power plant, and there ain't nothing me and my people can do about it. We're just going to have to keep that boot on our neck. It ain’t right.”

Texas is poised to be the data center capital of the world. Three hundred already operate in the state, 100 are under construction, and 200 more are being planned. The projects include Big Tech companies like Meta — which is constructing a $14 billion data center in El Paso — smaller scale local projects like one in Taylor that would be built on land meant for a public park, and massive startups like the nuclear-powered Fermi data center in Amarillo.

In general, people hate data centers and it’s become a major political issue for voters in Texas. On September 21, Abbott directed the TCEQ to “halt all permits sought by data centers.”  Abbott said he’d told the state’s water and electric utility agencies to audit all the projects and directed “the TCEQ to pause the issuance of all permits related to data center projects until [the Electric Reliability Council of Texas] completes its review.”

Abbott’s order is broad and data centers are large and complicated construction projects with a lot of moving parts that require dozens of permits and plans. It’s possible that some of the permits uncovered by the nonprofits were filed before Abbott’s September 21 pause.

Many, however, were clearly issued afterward. Twelve of the 14 applications for gas plants and generators were filed in October. TCEQ used an expedited review process for eight of them. One was an air permit for engines and turbines that would power a data center in the Dallas suburb of Irving, Texas. The builder submitted the permit for expedited review on October 6 and a TCEQ engineer completed the initial review two days later, according to publicly available documents reviewed by 404 Media.

“No permits have been approved,” Governor Abbot’s press secretary Andrew Mahaleris told 404 Media. “In line with the Governor’s directive, TCEQ has not taken and will not take any proactive actions related to the approval of data center permits. Likewise, no other state agency will approve data center-related permits until the Public Utility Commission, ERCOT, and the Water Development Board have the information they need to make informed decisions. Texans must come first.”

404 Media asked Abbott’s office why there are multiple data center related stormwater construction projects listed as “approved” and was told to talk to TCEQ. "The Commission has not issued any permits related to data centers and is complying with Governor Abbott’s directive," TCEQ told 404 Media.

Sam Law, a researcher and manager of communications at FracTracker Alliance, told 404 Media that TCEQ gave him “a more exacting interpretation of their own situation,” he said. “Which is that they are accepting applications, but not moving forward with reviewing them. That was shown to not be true.”

Law also noted that the stormwater construction permits that read as “approved” in the TCEQ system are the result of a regulatory loophole. “The state has just approved a generic construction stormwater permit, and then to get onto that permit, people file a notice of intent and then they add them to a pre-existing permit,” Law said.

The stormwater construction permit is required to raise and level ground. “It’s often the final approval needed to move forward to prepare the site to actually build the physical structure," he added. In areas where there’s no zoning restrictions or the city is unincorporated, then that permit is all a company needs to start building.

“The Caldwell Technology Park [...] the Stargate facility, and a bunch of other very large hyperscale facilities have gotten regulatory approvals in the form of this notice of intent, so it's not like a real pause,” he said.

Law said he believes Abbott is trying to project opposition to data centers without doing the real regulatory work. “If the point of the pause is to stop the sort of approvals of data centers, that's not what's been happening,” he said.

Multiple data center projects are underway in Abilene, Texas — including OpenAI’s Stargate project. According to TCEQ’s records, it issued a water quality permit for the Abilene data center on September 23. “We are, in fact, going to get a massive gas turbine plant right to people’s houses,” Abilene resident and Democratic state senate candidate Riley Rodriquez said during Public Citizen’s press conference.

Rodriquez said that residents had gotten letters from TCEQ about the incoming gas plant and how it might affect air quality in the region. The people of Abilene have fought and won the right to testify at upcoming public hearings. 

“At the end of the day they’re going to flip that switch. Doesn't matter what we have to say at that public hearing, and I know that is a doom and gloom way to look at this. But that's the fact,” Rodriquez said. “The fact of the matter is, we can go to that. We can have the best comments. We can have the best information [...] and I could have 500,000 people behind me, and it doesn't matter because they're going to flip that switch because they put the money on it anyways. And we got to live with that  — with those consequences.” 

Rodriquez said the people of the region found out about Stargate too late to do anything about it. “We're in a unique situation for us because we didn't have a chance to do any of the things that these great people are doing. We didn't have a chance to do any of that. ‘It was built, concrete's poured, generators are going in, boys. Sorry,’” he said.

“So Abbott made his announcement. That's really great, that's really awesome,” Rodriquez said. “Guess what? They're still putting in that power plant, and there ain't nothing me and my people can do about it. We're just going to have to keep that boot on our neck. It ain’t right.”

In his September 21 letter, Abbott said he’d ordered the pause because “the goal is to put Texans first.”

Update 10/19/26 at 8:20PM: This story has been updated to include a response from TCEQ.

You can never have too many portable chargers, especially when they’re this discounted.

A judge ordered Abdulrahman Alfozan to remain in custody, likening the Saudi government’s offer to secure the former OpenAI engineer’s release to a “blank check.”

Mixbook is the best card service I’ve tried, and the brand has multiple sales on holiday cards happening now.

WIRED contacted officials in all 50 states and Washington, DC, to uncover the extent of a harassment campaign ahead of the midterms.

JAXA is leading an international mission to reach Mars’ Phobos moon and bring soil back to Earth. If successful, it could unlock new clues about the history of the solar system.

A Florida police department claims that scammers used AI to clone a sheriff’s voice, with scammers increasingly using voice clones that trick people into thinking they’ve missed jury duty or have a warrant out for their arrest are increasing.

According to Florida news outlet News6, scammers cloned Osceola County Sheriff Steve Moser’s voice and left a voicemail with a resident.    

“They cloned his voice and was using Steve’s picture as well to say it was him making the phone call, and it was not,” Sheriff Chris Blackmon told News6.

Impersonating a police officer is a third-degree felony in Florida. The Osceola County sheriff’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

This particular scam cloning cops is spreading across several states, with reports of jury duty and arrest warrant scams targeting people in Georgia and Pennsylvania in the last week. These other reports don’t mention AI voice cloning explicitly, but note that the scammers sometimes have similar voices and tones as local police officers.  

Voice cloning scams have been around for years, with scammers using commercially available AI voice impersonation tools to target the elderly, families, and businesses. Last year, 404 Media investigated real-time deepfake scams that incorporated voice and video to defraud people. In 2024, we reported on the ways scammers cloned celebrity voices and use AI videos in YouTube ads to scam people.

Scammers often impersonate company executives or leadership to trick employees into sending money, and voice cloning appears to be an increasing part of that. In February, scammers cloned a managing partner of a law firm with AI. Ultimately, a private bank ended up transferring $108 million.

Upgrade your cold-weather cooking setup with discounted cookware for soups, stews, and roasts.

Around 80 pages on WhatsApp’s website exposed instructions that were designed for its chatbot, including “WHAT NOT TO SAY.” Meta says a bug caused the issue.

A gang of hackers targets Staples, but not to buy things from Staples.

A Chinese organized crime group hacked into retail giant Staples, used that access to fraudulently issue millions of dollars worth of gift cards for stores like Target and Sephora, then went on a nationwide shopping spree, shipping many of the stolen electronics and other products back to China as part of a massive retail theft operation, 404 Media has learned.

The finding, based on a review of court records, reveals the scale at which some organized crime groups are fleecing U.S. retailers, with entire warehouses dedicated to housing the merchandise. The hack of Staples, which has not been previously reported, signals just how sophisticated some of these operations have become.

Phil Baker sent me this one:

The Study: Effect of non-nutritive sweetened beverages v. water on body weight: long-term results of a randomised controlled trial.   Joanne A. Harrold , Scott Hill, Cristina Radu, Paul Thomas, Paula Thorp, Charlotte A. Hardman, Paul Christiansen, Una Masic, Lauren McGale, Dan J. Cuthbertson and Jason C.G. Halford. . British Journal of Nutrition 136: 482–493. doi: 10.1017/ S0007114526108150

Purpose: The aim of this study was to provide robust evidence on the long-term use of non-nutritive sweetened (NNS) beverages on weight management.

Method: Compare NNS beverages to water during 1 year of assisted weight management followed by a voluntary, unassisted 1-year extension.

Results: Participants consuming water maintained a weight loss of 3·7 kg over 104weeks, compared with 4·8 kg with NNS beverages (not statistically significant).

Conclusion: Our findings suggest people can lose weight and maintain it for 2 years, when drinking either NNS beverages or water and taking part in weight-management programmes.

Financial support. This trial was funded by the American Beverage Association. The American Beverage Association was not involved in the design, conduct, analysis of data or interpretation of this trial; a representative from the American Beverage Association was provided with the opportunity to review the manuscript. Final decisions regarding the content were made by the authors. The manuscript was developed with the assistance of a medical writer, funded by the American Beverage Association, under the direction of the authors. A third-party organisation (Biofortis) audited data at the clinical site to check for the accuracy and integrity of the data.

Competing interests. Joanne A. Harrold reports funding (paid to the University of Liverpool) from the American Beverage Association for the present study. Outside of the submitted work, she reports a grant from the European Commission for the Horizon 2020 project SWEET. Scott Hill reports funding (paid to the University of Liverpool) from the American Beverage Association for the present study. Cristina Radu reports funding (paid to the University of Liverpool) from the American Beverage Association for the present study and funding from Coca Cola for a PhD studentship outside of the submitted work. Paul Thomas reports funding (paid to the University of Liverpool) from the American Beverage Association for the present study. Paula Thorp reports funding (paid to the University of Liverpool) from the American Beverage Association for the present study. Charlotte A. Hardman reports funding (paid to the University of Liverpool) from the American Beverage Association for the present study. Outside of the submitted work, she reports honoraria from the International Sweeteners Association, International Food Information Council and Mars Global Nutrition Advisory Council (paid to the University of Liverpool); grants from the European Commission for the Horizon 2020 project SWEET, the Biotechnology & Biological Sciences Research Council and the Natural Environment Research Council (paid to the University of Liverpool); primary supervisor on a PhD studentship funded by Coca Cola (awarded to CR); personal fees for her role on the Food Standards Agency Advisory Committee on Social Sciences and an unpaid role as a trustee of Feeding Liverpool. Paul Christiansen reports funding (paid to the University of Liverpool) from the American Beverage Association for the present study. Outside of the submitted work, he reports grants from the European Commission for the Horizon 2020 project SWEET, the National Institute for Health and Care Research, the Home Office UK and the Federal Bureau of Investigation and personal fees from Kaplan and Crohn’sandColitisUK. Una Masic reports funding (paid to the University of Liverpool) from the American Beverage Association for the present study. Lauren McGale reports funding (paid to the University of Liverpool) from the American Beverage Association for the present study. Outside of the submitted work, she reports funding (paid to the University ofLiverpool) fromtheWHO,andfunding(paid to the University of Wollongong) from the Australian Government’s Department of Health and Aged Care. Daniel J. Cuthbertson reports funding (paid to the University of Liverpool) from the American Beverage Association for the present study. Outside of the submitted work, he reports funding from Novo Nordisk and AstraZeneca for investigator-initiated research and consultancy (paid to the University of Liverpool) and educational grants from Perspectum. Jason C.G. Halford reports funding (paid to the University of Liverpool) from the American Beverage Association for the present study. Outside of the submitted work, he reports a grant from the European Commission for the Horizon 2020 project SWEET; consultancy fees from Boehringer Ingelheim, Dupont and Mars (all paid to the University of Leeds); honoraria from Novo Nordisk (paid to the University of Leeds); support for attending meetings from Novo Nordisk; financial support for participation in an advisory board for Dupont (paid to the University of Leeds); unpaid participation in an advisory board for the Sweet Tooth Project and unpaid board membership of the European Coalition of People Living with Obesity. He is treasurer of the World Obesity Federation.

Comment: This study was commissioned by, paid for, and reviewed  by the American Beverage Association.  The authors were paid by the ABA to do the study (the University of Leeds must be a hotbed of research funded by the soda industry).  Why do this?  People consuming artificially sweetened drinks sometimes are shown to gain weight on them.  This study aimed to demonstrate—and did—that artificially sweetened drinks are as good as water during weight loss.  The ABA got what it paid for.

The post Industry-funded study of the week: artificially sweetened drinks vs. water appeared first on Food Politics by Marion Nestle

The codirector of “You Can See Everything” talks exclusively to WIRED about truth, lies, and Theranos.

Microsoft is letting players digitize their game discs for free, but don't sell your physical collection just yet.

In 2020, Maricopa County became the epicenter for Trump’s claims the election was stolen. Six years, later the president and his allies are dusting off their “rigged” playbook ahead of the midterms.

Elizabeth Holmes’ husband is a major figure in Nathan Fielder’s new documentary. But who is Billy Evans—and is he really working on a second blood-testing company?

WIRED was the first magazine to cover Theranos and its enticing billionaire founder. There were warning signs even then.

Bring the gift everyone will want to win from this year’s holiday party, from a cute jacket for a beer can to magnets they’ll wish they could eat.

The entertainment giant hopes to get trust and safety tech, among other IP, from a startup whose chatbots dozens of states allege encouraged minors to self-harm and kill their parents.